UNIT – 4
AFTER TWENTY YEARS – O’HENRY
'After Twenty Years' is a short story by O. Henry about two best friends, Jimmy Wells and Bob, who decide to go down different paths and make a pact to meet at the same place after twenty years. It tells the story of two childhood friends who made a pact to meet again after twenty years. At the appointed meeting time and location, a policeman walks up and asks Bob what he's doing. Bob explains that he is waiting to meet with an old friend, and the officer departs. Later, a man claiming to be Jimmy arrives. However, the man is actually a different policeman sent to arrest Bob, who is a known criminal in Chicago. The original policeman was actually Jimmy, but he didn't have the heart to arrest his old friend.
It is about to be ten o'clock on a largely deserted avenue in New York. A policeman walks his way up the street, carefully checking the locked doors of the businesses that have long since closed for the day. Suddenly, the officer of the peace encounters a man with an unlit cigar, standing in the doorway of a hardware store. Congenially, the man tells the policeman that he is waiting for a friend, whom he had agreed to meet with at that very spot, twenty years ago that day.
The waiting man strikes a match to light the cigar he is holding, and in the brief flash of illumination, the officer notes that the person before him has "a pale, square-jawed face with keen eyes, and a little white scar near his right eyebrow." On his scarf is a large diamond, indicating great wealth. The man explains that he and the friend for whom he is waiting, Jimmy Wells, had been raised in New York like brothers; when they had grown up, Jimmy had remained in the city, but he himself had headed West to make his fortune. Upon taking leave of each other, the two friends had agreed to meet again in exactly twenty years to the hour, "no matter what [their] conditions might be or from what distance [they] might have to come."
The waiting man pulls out a fancy watch, embellished with diamonds. He is confident that his old friend will meet him that night if he is alive, no matter what his circumstances may be, because Jimmy always was "the truest, staunchest old chap in the world."
The cop goes on his way, the rainfall starts a the man keeps waiting.
After a few minutes, a man arrives and introduces himself as Jimmy. Bob is happy to find his friend and both men share pleasantries. Bob notices that Jimmy has changed, in fact, was taller than he remembered. Jimmy says that he grew a bit after 20. Jimmy insists that since the old restaurant (where they had had their last meal together 20 years ago) is not there anymore, they should go to some other place.
As they pass the street light, Bob looks at his friend's face and says that though 20 years can change a man in many ways, it rarely changes the shape of a man's nose. He asks if he is Jimmy. The other man says that he is not and that Bob has been under arrest for the past 10 minutes. He tells him to come with him quietly and hands him a letter, which says:
“Bob: I was at the place on time. I saw the face of the man wanted by Chicago cops. I didn’t want to arrest you myself. So I went and got another cop and sent him to do the job. JIMMY.”
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